Little Things We Lose
by Muchleft-unsaid
Summary: The losses that Elizabeth suffered and the painful journey of processing them all, step by step, day by day. Post-Iran.
1. Chapter 1

A child's scream reverberated through Elizabeth's mind, shrill and strangled at the same time, slicing through the sudden thickness in the air, and then everything around her faded away to a carpeted floor covered in debris and glass shards with the air punctuated by gunfire and the screams of _children_ \- there was a dead weight on top of her and she could only flinch -

Then Mike B was saying something but she couldn't hear anything over her own heartbeat and she blinked, the familiar interior of the State Department disorienting her for a moment. Her gaze sharpened on where they had landed before her flashback - the photo of Fred Cole on the table outside her waiting area, his easy smile framed and immortalised, but never again in her peripheral vision.

"You good?" Mike B was asking, a casual smile on his face that seemed so out of place - "what?"

"Are you good to go?"

Meeting with Owen Walton - Amazon rainforest in Ecuador - Chip Harding being a pain - her thoughts flooded back in a rush - "yes, yeah, absolutely, I just," she trailed off, waving Blake away, her mind whispering _office_ like it was her lifeline.

At this point, even Elizabeth had to admit that she was a lot less okay than she was pretending to be as she reached out through blurred vision to the phone on her desk, and _oh_ , how she wished she was reaching out to Henry, physically, her lovely, ever patient and protective Henry.

* * *

She stayed crouched on the floor for a moment after hanging up, letting Henry's voice wash over her frazzled nerves. She had five minutes for the red in her eyes to recede before she could leave her office and let herself be swept into Henry's arms, so she picked a spot on her coat and stared at it as hard as she could while her mind packed her feelings away until she was free to fall apart.

It took her another couple of minutes before she finally brought herself to stand, wiping away the tear tracks and inhaling deeply with only the slightest tremor. Her gaze scanned her desk as she came to the uncharacteristic decision to bring none of the papers home. Besides, she thought wryly, she had a feeling that Henry was not going to let her anywhere near work for the rest of the day.

"Blake?" she asked, exiting her office with a grace she could only afford because of her extensive training as a spy. Her assistant glanced up at her immediately, uncertainty all over his expression. "Would you tell Mike B to handle the Walton meeting?"

"No worries ma'am, he's already heading to the conference room with Nadine and Laura Vargas," Blake informed her with a tinge of relief in his voice.

Elizabeth nodded to herself. Mike B was no one's definition of warm and fuzzy, but he was perceptive and an old friend of hers. That cleared her path to her motorcade and more importantly, her Henry.

"Thanks Blake. I'll be, um," she cleared her throat, "I'll be heading home for the day," she replied as smoothly as she could. She even managed to keep up her composure while making her way out of the office, out of the building where thousands of eyes watched her every move.

The walk from her office to her motorcade took three minutes, which was three minutes too long in her opinion. But finally her detail was in front of her, opening the door as she climbed into the back seat and _finally, finally,_ Henry was there. His gaze was firm and soft at the same time and he reached over to pull her close, his arms sliding around her waist.

Her shoulders sagged as she exhaled in a rush, crumpling into his lap at last. She breathed in his scent, the scent that spelled safety and unwavering support and home. Henry stroked her hair slowly, gently, his steady breathing guiding hers and she held on to him a little tighter, as though she was making up for the distance she had put between them in the past five days.

Kissing her hair softly, he murmured, "Just so you know, I'm going to hover over you for the rest of the day. No arguments."

Elizabeth just nodded mutely. In that moment, nothing was better than the thought of her husband taking charge of her as she figured out how to put herself back together.

* * *

She didn't speak much for the rest of the day. Stevie had gone back to work after visiting her at the hospital but both Alison and Jason skipped their after school activities and came home as soon as they could. Both of them were so terrified that Jason even momentarily forgot to be mad at her for his security detail.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Alison asked for the third time, her eyes peering up at Elizabeth filled with a wide eyed fear that she hadn't seen in a long time. Jason was hovering by the stairs, wanting to maintain his anger but needing to know that his mother wasn't about to drop dead at the same time. Elizabeth smiled and kissed her daughter on the head. "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry about it," she coaxed.

Alison nodded slowly to herself. "I'll finish up my homework for today and then I'll cook something light for dinner, okay?" Elizabeth gave her a nudge towards the stairs where Jason was already making his way up somewhat hesitantly.

The composure she maintained in front of her children drained away once she was sure they were both in their rooms and immediately Henry's hand was on her back, guiding her to the couch. She dropped onto the couch in exhaustion, the numbness in her straining her energy. Henry disappeared briefly as she stared into the distance blankly, her mind a mile away, and by the time she refocused on the moment, he had returned armed with ice cream and a fleece blanket.

"You spoil me," she murmured after a few spoonfuls of ice cream as he wrapped the blanket around her.

"Not as much as I should," he replied with a kiss to her temple. "What do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

She looked down at the tub she was holding. "Ice cream?"

Henry sighed. "The rest of the _whole_ day, babe."

"I have no idea where your objection lies."

That cracked a smile out of Henry. "Oh, it is good to have you back," he chuckled but immediately stopped at the look on her face. "Babe?"

"Am I?" she whispered after a second, jabbing the ice cream with her spoon. "Am I back?"

Henry paused, then tucked her head under his chin. "That's up to you, Elizabeth."

She mulled over his words for a long moment before tugging him to lie down on the couch with her. They stayed like that till dinner time, exchanging spoonfuls of ice cream and after the tub was empty, simply drinking in the feeling of each other, properly, for the first time since she reached home five days ago.

* * *

He found her late that night - or early the next morning - curled up on Jason's bed, stroking his hair softly. She turned her head when he entered the room and reached out when he came close, her arms closing around his neck. Henry lifted her from their son's bed with much more ease than he was comfortable and headed for their room.

"Let's make a deal," he said after he had set her down on her side of the bed. "Mm?"

"On my birthday every year, I get to pamper you like this," he continued, playing with her hair lightly.

Elizabeth thought it through for a few seconds, working through the sleepy fog in her mind. "See that, that makes no sense. Shouldn't it be the other way round?"

Henry grinned. "Perhaps, but there's nothing I love more than taking care of you."

Her eyes fluttered shut as the stresses of the day caught up with her. "I'm cancelling Jason's detail," she mumbled almost inaudibly, "and I love you," her voice was barely a whisper as she slowly caved to exhaustion.

Henry hummed softly as she drifted into sleep, eyes studying her face as intently as he did the first time they shared a bed almost three decades ago, marvelling at the woman before his eyes who had found her way back to him despite all that had happened, who was strong, beautiful and most importantly, _his_.


	2. Chapter 2

_There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. - Thomas Aquinas_

Elizabeth was aware that coups and conspiracies left piles of loose ends to tie up, but it was in the few minutes before her meeting with the Algerian ambassador when it truly dawned upon her exactly how much of a mess the Munsey situation had left them all.

Admittedly, she had recovered better than expected - the injury on her back had faded to a scar so light that she could barely find it on her skin. Even her flashbacks, restlessness and surges of anxiety were gone, which she credited to Henry's gentle but firm nudges to talk everything out before the week was even over. He had known her well enough to figure out, almost immediately, that the violence she had seen in Iran was not the cause of her agitation, but rather something that hit much closer to home.

Much of her life's work had been motivated by the need to make the world a better place for children. Stevie had been born just two years after she joined the CIA and with that, the vague notions of serving her country and mankind at large had solidified into a determination to keep the world in good shape for children to grow up in.

Yet in that crucial moment, she had failed in her duty, and the little boy's face haunted her even when she shut her eyes to block out the scream that was only ringing in her head. _Abdol_ had stayed with her like her little secret, chipping away at her until she let it all out to Henry - her dirty, blood stained, ringing failure to protect the people she swore to protect, the children of the world.

 _Children_ , like Lilly and Miles, who would never get to hold their mother's hands while walking down the street or hug their mother tightly after a rough day at school, because Juliet was on the kill list for the crimes that she committed and the blood on her hands.

And that brought Elizabeth to the greatest struggle she had yet to process.

Juliet had done this. All of this - the planning, the murders, and if the forensic evidence that VEVAK turned over from the apartment near the Bandar Abbas air base was to be trusted, even the execution of the coup.

Was Elizabeth furious at Juliet for all that she had done? Of course. Was she disappointed, dismayed and disillusioned at both Juliet for her actions and herself for not noticing? Definitely.

Did she want Juliet dead?

A steely voice of _Elizabeth_ in her mind hissed her consent, but the softer voice of _Bess_ whimpered quietly, tracing all the memories they shared - holing up in their office for hours on end with too much coffee, camping out in safe houses halfway across the world every now and then, being fed food that was not burnt, taking turns to make jabs at George and his antics -

(But George was dead now -)

And the Algerian ambassador was on her way up, so Elizabeth marked a line of distinction between Juliet, her long time friend with an easy laugh and mother-like sternness, and Humphrey, the former CIA operative on the kill list for treason, because if she had to convince Algeria to let them kill the latter, she should at least get to keep the former.

* * *

She had thought that finding out the truth about George's death would provide her with some sense of closure, because if she were honest with herself, she still had not fully come to terms with the fact that her friend of 22 years had been murdered. His death she had come to accept, but every time she thought of the deliberate and cold planning that was put into killing him, she felt an inexplicable sense of revulsion, washing over her like strong waves trying to drown her.

 _So I tampered with the microchip controlling the acceleration system of his car. It just looked like a single-car collision._ Juliet had said that. Juliet, who had looked so immensely at peace with her actions, who had laid out information like dishes of home-cooked food during spy reunion, who had joined the company the same week as her and was mentored by George himself, had admitted to killing her mentor like she was relaying the weather forecast. Elizabeth waited for overwhelming anger to hit her, perhaps even hatred, but she just stood there watching her old friend confess.

Conrad had called them the inner sanctum - Munsey, George, Juliet and herself, the four subordinates he had been closest to in the CIA. Noble warriors, he liked to call them during their group dinners. Yet of the four, three had either committed treason or died, or both and she was left staring at the woman she once thought of as family through the glass in the interrogation cell, staring at the familiar face that was masked by cold nonchalance with just a sliver of wrathful bitterness beneath the surface.

The small, cynical side of her laughed a little at the bitter irony of it all, but on the whole, Elizabeth just felt a paralysing sense of numbness.

* * *

"She did it herself. Huh."

Elizabeth was draped across the couch in Isabelle's apartment, staring up at the ceiling while Isabelle nursed a glass of wine, her legs folded under her on the armchair.

"She admitted to it," Elizabeth sighed, letting the thickness hang in the air over their heads, a storm of loss and betrayal.

Isabelle didn't speak for a while. "When you suspected me of being the mole," she began tentatively, "did you also suspect that I killed George?"

Elizabeth's head snapped in her direction, eyes sharpening on the impassive expression on Isabelle's face. "God no," she croaked, "I -"

"It's fine, just - forget that I asked," Isabelle dismissed with a flick of her hand. Silence hung over them again but this time instead of a storm, it was the elephant in the room that pressed down on her chest.

Elizabeth exhaled deeply. "I didn't believe it was you. You were worried about being caught in the crossfire and you could have thrown me off the scent so many times, since the bulk of our progress came from you and your access to resources at Langley. But I had to make a move."

Isabelle sighed and downed the rest of the wine. "You didn't have to, by the way," she said after a moment, gesturing at her bedroom and the brand new mattress on her bed frame.

A brief smile flitted across Elizabeth's face. "It's an olive branch."

Isabelle reached for the bottle of wine on the coffee table and poured them both a glass. "To future spy reunions."

Elizabeth sat up and clinked her glass against Isabelle's. "May they be light and fun."

They both knew it would be some time before the coup in Iran and everything leading up to it stopped hanging over their heads, but at least Elizabeth knew that she hadn't lost her last close friend from Langley, because that's what Isabelle was to her now.

* * *

Elizabeth stood beside Conrad before George's grave three days after Juliet's confession, the events of the past six months following his death weighing heavily on her mind. She ran through a list of assignments that they had both been involved in during her twelve years in the company and allowed herself to miss the part time operative, part time analyst, full time bastard as she and Isabelle had often called him.

"You okay, Bess?" That was the second time Conrad had asked her that in three days, which was more frequent than he ever had, but then and again, he saw them all grow into their jobs at the company and along the way, into their friendships.

"Just remembering the times I yelled at him for going rogue, sir," Elizabeth managed. Conrad gave a soft chuckle. "Peshawar?"

"And Kandahar," she added with a small smile. Then her smile faded. "Thirty years of covert ops and he dies by the hands of a friend," her words came out hoarse and soft.

Conrad kept his silence for a moment. "I'm having Director Williams put his name on the memorial wall at Langley. Figured that was the least we can do."

Elizabeth lowered her head for a moment, then let her gaze settle on the tombstone.

 _To the very end_ , his epitaph was simple and fitting, even more so in the light of his murder. "It is, sir. The very least."


End file.
